"Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day" .....
We may now say - Men, men Go away ... Women Shall replace Thee !!
Numbers of men in Indian Parliament will go down as History is to be made and more vacant slot will be made for women members. Why talking about Past was so much of Male Chauvinism ? Why the 'story' was called His ??
Nevertheless we may talk of exemplary men parliamentarians and their debating skills. Nehru was a well known writer and debater too. But he faced stiff opponents - all on merits.
In one of his speeches, Nehru had chastised Jay Prakash Narayan for “playing hide-and-seek” between the pillars of politics and social service. The younger man, he said, “claim[ed] to have given up politics” but “continued to dabble in it.” Narayan replied that he did “not see why only active party and power politicians should express political opinions and no others.
"Politics would then be reduced to a sordid party game with which the citizen would have no concern.”
The Sangh parivar's stalwart Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee was one such. Nehru had pushed the First Amendment vis-a-vis freedom of speech and expression.
“It has become a matter of great distress to me to see from day to day some of these newssheets which are full of vulgarity and indecency and falsehood… not injuring me or this House but poisoning the mind of the younger generation...". Mookerjee countered him.
“You can pass a law and say that the entire task of framing, interpreting and working the Constitution will be left in the hands of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, assisted by such people, whom he may desire to consult… You are treating this Constitution as a scrap of paper".
Mookerjee condemned “this encroachment on the liberty of the people of free India” in his stirring concluding remarks".
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| Syama Prasad Mookerjee far left with others |
Many years later George Fernandes had emerged as a fiery trade union leader and an equally powerful orator in Parliament.
He was known for indepth knowledge on defence, labor, and foreign policy.
As Defence Minister, he defended the Kargil conflict handling and addressed the 2001-02 standoff with Pakistan. He defended BJP's politics and the necessity about formation of NDA in 1996 and 1998.
George belonged to the 'socialists' team' of N G Gore, Barrister Nath Pai and Madhu Limaye.
Fernandes delivered several forceful speeches and even called Indira Gandhi a “congenital liar”. In 1996 and 1998, George exposed how political manifesto of Congress, Left parties and United Front attacked each other but in Lok Sabha they would gang up only to corner the BJP.
He recalled CPI-M manifesto which had said - "The Congress party has degenerated; both politically and organisationally ...it betrayed the secular heritage".
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was like a 'made in parliament' Neta. he was in Parliament almost full 52 years from 1957 to 2009.
When he was PM; the Babus often complained the Vajpayee preferred Parliament to his office.
There were a number of good speakers and they their sense of humour.
Late PM Chandrashekhar was one of them. He used to call Vajpayee "Guru ji' and once when Vajpayee said - "he calls me Guru but keeps disturbing my speech".
Chandrashekhar carried his usual charm and said - "I have to bring back Guru on the right track whenever he goes off-track". The result used to be a peals of laughter in the House.
Former Union Minister K P Unnikrishnan was regarded as one of the prominent figures in Indian politics during the 1980s and 1990s.
It was Unnikrishnan who first brought Ottavio Quattrocchi into parliament discourse on the Bofors scandal.
Gurudas Dasgupta during UPA-2 slammed Anna Hazare and asserted in Lok Sabha, "Sir, this country cannot have two Fathers of the Nation".
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| Gurudas Dasgupta |
Shashi Tharoor has certainly made his name among the top ranking orators in Parliament. His debating skills in English in superb and at times he also tries to make brief interventions in Hindi. He was a Minister in the Manmohan Singh government briefly and outside Parliament courted controversies for his tweets on Cattle Class.
The Kerala lawmaker ran into trouble for a message he posted on the social networking site Twitter, in which he said he would travel “cattle class” in solidarity with all our “holy cows”. In 2005, he made news for pro-Modi Govt remarks on Operation Sindoor more often displeasing the Congress leadership.
But he had such remarks in the past as well. In 2015, he went against the party line by applauding the Kerala Cabinet's support for Vizhinjam Port's decision to award a development contract to Adani Ports. Needless to add even those days the refrain was -- Gautam Adani is close to PM Narendra Modi.
Tharoor's stance was a bit surprising as Rahul Gandhi was already going full swing attacking the Prime Minister for promoting the Adani and Ambani groups. Prior to that in October 2014 also, Tharoor was dropped by Congress as a spokesman for frequently praising Modi.
Bhartuhari Mahtab, a former Biju Janata Dal leader, is now BJP's MP from Cuttack in Odisha. A gentleman per se; Mahtab is a text-book lawmaker who will study in details to take up matters in the House. From time to time especially as part of Naveen Patnaik's party; he has several issues of national and regional importance including coal bloks and other corruption issues.
During the debate on Lokpal in 2011; he had exposed the UPA government's faultline in drafting the Bill and how it had actually attacked the federal structure of the constitution.
It is said only after Mahtab spoke in details; Mamata Banerjee was furious against the Lokpal Bill and also criticised her party MPs for not doing the job properly.
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| Mahtab : A gentleman Lawmker |
Other male leaders who have shown their ability to perform in Parliament should also include the likes of - Late D P Tripathi (NCP), Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), Saugata Roy (Trinamool) and also the likes of S Jaipal Reddy.
Jaipal was a Congress leader in the end. but he had made a name for himself as a debater and spokesman as the Janata Dal man in the coalition era of 1990s. Once criticising Arun Shourie, he had said:
"After excelling in journalism, Mr Shourie is now trying to excel in fiction writing".
In 2000 during debate on Ayodhya in Lok Sabha Jaipal (of Congress) ended up tearing into the PM Vajpayee's comments on the temple.
``This was no slip of the tongue... this is the slip of the mask,'' declared Reddy while referring to Vajpayee's statement that the Ayodhya movement for the Tam temple was a manifestation of national sentiment.
``I would like to impeach him...for depriving the Indian polity of secular immunity.... from today, Vajpayee has become a lameduck prime minister.''
Without these 'men', the story of Indian Parliament would have been different. Men will be men; as they say.
ends
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